This recent fantastical work of Seoung Won Won captured my imagination. These landscapes, part of “My Age of Seven”, are legendary and surreal. Isn’t this childhood? You’re shorter than everything around you; then you grow up, and the act of remembering childhood becomes surreal. Certain moments from the mists become signposts and harbingers.

JUE Festival comments:

Her way of creating photographic stories of the people around her by combining different image sources from the photographs taken by her throughout the country, has been the ‘hallmark’ of the artist.  … Consequently, the completion of each piece takes quite long time, and there the intervals between new creations are longer than those of other artists. However, this explains why her photographs, though digital ones, appear to be a result of detailed manual work. They look even like quilts which are made by sewing together different pieces of fabric.

Seoung Won Won has been hallmarked by her focused telling of the stories around her, but in “My Age of Seven” she shifts to speaking of herself. Perhaps her engagement with the stories of others caused a fresh consideration of her own.

“My Age of Seven” is sparkling clear fantasy. Rather than being disorienting or exclusive, its detailed presentation of memory is at once particular and universally inviting. The viewer is placed within the artist’s childhood and invited to revisit their own, perpetuating a legend in which we all participate.

To view more of Seoung Won Won’s work, check out her page at the Google Art Project: http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/entity/%2Fm%2F0t504sj?projectId=art-project&hl=en